Songs for the Weak
by moonsauce
Summary: DMHG Narcissa has commited suicide, and Draco finds himself getting married in his last year at Hogwarts. Hermione isn't doing much better, and finds herself following his dark path...


A/N: Amazing! I've actually held onto an idea long enough to actually want to write it down! That is astounding for someone as incredibly lazy as me. Ohh, I have so much homework, though! I'll probably be very scarce with my updating, but you'll just have to deal with it till I have a big break for holidays.

Disclaimer: I do not own J.K.'s series, and I also do not own the characters, or the fanfare, or any of the songs I may mention in this story, or the poster on my brother's wall. Deal with it.

Without further ado, another DMHG fic…

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Songs for the Weak

Chapter One

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Draco sang the notes silently in his head outside the large, oak door. He still remembered it. The tune stuck in his mind like a fly sticks to a fly trap; only, Draco felt like he was the fly. The tune brought back depression and memories, trapping him in the past. Why couldn't he just forget it all?

Draco stared down the long, cold hallway that led down to the kitchen. Not that he ever went to the kitchen, but he knew where it was. Every curve and every corner seemed to mock him in his hazy world of memories. Everywhere he looked, she was there. Him too; He was still here because of her. He mocked Draco too, he brought back more memories. More painful ones, full of hate and confusion; she merely brought back depression. She brought back wishing; wishing for it to end. That's why she let Him live. That's why Draco was so empty.

He felt so unsure of his feelings, he was like a little boy choosing between two broomsticks he didn't even like. Is he angry? Is he sad, or relieved, or just insane? Is he nothing at all? His vast mixture of feelings blended together to create his emptiness. Like when you too many paint colors in a pot, the emptiness was gray. That's what happens when you don't care. You try to convince yourself you're sad, and then you feel unrealistic, and you feel angry, then you're relieved. It drives you insane. It gives you the gray; the emptiness.

Draco had wondered if he even cared Narcissa was dead. At first, when he was young, he would die for her. But then she changed. She didn't eat, or even talk anymore. She had a strong smell of alcohol on her clothing, and Draco could tell she had been drinking. Lucius had hardly noticed. Or at least by what Draco could tell.

Like an icari's wraith, Narcissa had swayed about the ornate, echoing hallways, smelling of a mixture of wine and dry tears, causing many of the house elves to give the feeble woman a wide berth. She was a creature to be pitied, and yet she managed to continue to act strong, not for Draco, but for herself. Draco had come to find that it was always for herself. Last June, when Draco had come home from his sixth year a Hogwarts, something had changed. Narcissa was quieter, she lost half her original body weight, and one sullen day, Draco had detected a strong smell of alcohol on her night dress, as a house elf carried it by. Her face was always deeply stained with dried tears when she when she came to the dinner hall. Back then, she was so distant, and so little seen, most forgot about her. Now that she's gone, it seems like she's everywhere. Some nights, Draco still hears her wailing, and the slosh of another bottle of drink, to dose the interminable tears.

It annoyed Draco that she would become so hopeless. She didn't seem to care anymore, as if she didn't even have to live for her own son. Then Draco realized that she never really cared in the first place. In an abstract way, she was like Lucius; scorning his very existence because he reminded them that they once had a bond. That they once didn't fight, didn't scream, and didn't hurt. Narcissa was just better at hiding it, much better. She had hated him just as much as Lucius. But it was the fact that Narcissa actually had tried to hide it that made Draco guilty. He was guilty that he didn't care.

oooo

Hermione rode her new bike down the freshly paved street, trying to convince herself that she was happy, too. Like the Parnshly's, the Dugly's, and everyone else in the neighborhood. Why couldn't she be happy like them? Because she wasn't like them, she couldn't find happiness in the boring consistency of the suburban life. Mom loved it, and Dad fit right in, being a working man. Although, at first, Mom wasn't accepted for being a working woman, the neighbors gradually got used to it. Hermione, though, could never quite fit in. The other kids would tolerate her, but they never did so warmly. Maybe it was her big eyes, or her bushy hair. Or, more likely, the constant bundle of books sitting on her bicycle and the fact that she didn't go to their Muggle school. Some kids asked her about it, but not often. She was perpetually the new kid.

Hermione grimaced and plastered a wide smile on her small, pale face as she walked through the door of her home.

"Hi, honey, how was the library today?" her mother asked right away.

"Okay, I found some nice books to read while I wait for Hogw– school to start." Hermione smiled a bit wider as her mother gave her a worried look. She knew her mother thought she didn't have enough friends. Harry and Ron didn't cut it. Mrs. Granger wanted her to have non-magical summer friends. _Normal, _as her mother had put it.

Hermione just caught herself before she sighed, as she knew her mother was listening to her climb the stairs. Her mother claimed she wasn't happy, but it wasn't because of lack of friends. It was because of this whole place; that seemed to get smaller and smaller as it choked Hermione into non-existence, and into the automaton submission to the boring, same life of all of her neighbors. Even her mother was becoming one of them, joining in on the choking.

ooo

Draco shuffled through the empty, quiet hallways, wishing that they would end. The Malfoy Mansion seemed as if it were built to force Draco into thinking about things. Draco walked along, thinking, submitting to the dark, solitary air. Solitariness made him think. Why?

But he was afraid to sit down either, because then he would effortlessly be sucked away into the deep black hole of his cold, gray heart. He was sure to lose hope, like Narcissa. The knowledge of this, somehow, soothed him. Wouldn't it be nice to end it all? No, Draco told himself. He couldn't give up, he wasn't like her! He wasn't……was he? The slosh of his mother's endless alcohol seemed to be engraved into his mind, like a memory, but more like a torture tool. Years from now, would he be the one making the slosh? Keeping awake a neglected boy in the night, with his wails? Who he? Maybe. Maybe it would be him. Why not? What's stopping him? Why not start now.

His pace quickened, then turned to a jog, and then to a full throttle run; mechanically, like a Muggle car slowly shifting up the gears to full speed. It felt good, to run, to get away from it all.

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A/N: I had a lump in my throat by the time I finished the chapter. Please, REVIEW! The later chapters will be a little bit lighter, but you know, this is a dark themed fanfiction.


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